Cave-In
by Blue-Inked Frost
Summary: The Bhaalspawn must survive with an unlikely companion when he's trapped in a cave. Complete.


A/N: Written for Yuletide 2016 for LateToTheParty. I also wrote an explicit Edwin romance fic for another holiday exchange - Steam-Bath in Saradush for PuggiePuggie, posted at archiveofourown-dot-org / works / 9145594.

—

They dug too deep.

The Cloakwood mines lay above raging waters. Below the waters lay a darker evil. The Orothiar clan breached the wall between the mine and the river, and knew not what they released.

—

 _Grrrrrr!_ thought the Bhaalspawn.

The midday sun shone above, dappling the leafy overhang with gold and green. Wild trees and low undergrowth tangled with each other, overgrown and overpowering in the summer heat. If you listened closely, you could just make out birdsong, though some of it ended with a sudden, distressed _eeeek_. More commonly, you heard spider legs chittering against each other, and clutched your weapons as a chilled shiver ran up your back. And every so often, you could hear strange rumblings, whether natural or human or monstrous it was impossible to tell.

Xzar's lips smacked together, and the Bhaalspawn grimaced. Ever since the spider queen's grotesque and disgusting lair, the mad wizard had been eating takeaway snacks. Pickled spider eyes. It was best not to ask what he pickled them in.

"Can you not do that? Not in public?" Vassar grumbled. He had the look of a warrior, or so he thought, tallish and outfitted in some rather decent chainmail, but inside he had to admit it—he had a sensitive stomach. Things bothered him, such as the gleaming dark slime on Xzar's teeth.

"Oh, what am I thinking of? Not sharing with my dear friends?" Xzar tipped his glass jar Vassar's way. Vassar gulped and turned his head away. Vomiting wasn't supposed to be in the fearless leader's job description.

"Unnatural," Jaheira declared, looking equally disgusted. Imoen frowned.

"Hey, I've seen you eating meat," she said. "You turn into a bear and gobble up innocent baby rabbits, remember? Also yuck!"

"Giant spiders were created by magic; by vicious unnatural wizards who didn't know when to leave well enough alone," Jaheira said primly. "Any natural arthropod that size and shape would be unable to breathe and collapse from lack of air."

They'd faced Centeol's lair full of horrible giant spiders led by a bloated spider mutant elf. And survived it, Vassar reminded himself. Despite everything—Jaheira and Khalid feuding with Montaron and Xzar at every turn, Imoen constantly pestering them all with pranks—he'd held them together and marched on to solve the iron conspiracy. Perhaps Cloakwood would bring answers.

"Normal spiders are just as bad if you ask me," Imoen said. "I never liked it when they went _squish_ , so whenever I found them in Winthrop's inn I'd sweep them up in the dustpan and put them outside. Or in Vassar's bedroom. Heh."

"And here I thought I was going through some sort of horrifying spider-attracting plague," Vassar muttered.

"You should have been grateful to Imoen," Jaheira lectured. "A few friendly spiders help anyone against vermin."

"You should write a book—the Good of Spiders," Imoen said. "I found a use for them once, in this storybook I read. I s'pose the author really wanted to make the heroine get naked, because she walked through a field and bam! Spiders in her cleavage." Imoen massaged the flat top of her leather armour. "So she stripped off."

"If you want to follow suit, ye'd need to _get_ cleavage first," Montaron said, sneering at her.

"You're so buffleheaded, Monty." Imoen sidled up to the front of the group, where Khalid took point for them. His shield cleared their path; sweat ran down his brow below his helmet. "Hey, Khalid! Do I have cleavage?"

"Imoen, p-perhaps you should ask someone else. Like Jaheira, for example." Khalid resolutely stared ahead.

"'Scuse me, Jaheira—" Imoen began. Vassar stared into the distance. Something moved. He thought Khalid saw it too.

"Get ready! What is that thing?" Vassar shouted. Xzar cried out words in a language Vassar didn't understand—a spell. Montaron rushed forward, his short sword drawn and dripping with poison. Vassar got a clear sight as it came through the treeline.

Ten feet tall or more. Grey and black and blue. Tentacles, blurring around an inhuman shape that looked like the remains of vitriol spilled on flesh. Mist coiled around it, and every instant it slipped through the forest it seemed to grow larger. It moved with inhuman speed.

Xzar's voice reached fever pitch, and his spell flew through the air. He'd thrown a kobold skull at the creature, primed to explode. Vassar saw the impact—skull fragments bursting, roiling in the miasma that surrounded the creature, the _demon_ —but it paid no heed.

A tentacle lanced forward. Something burst out of it. The beam hit Xzar's arm and passed through his chest. The mad wizard fell, the light suddenly gone from his open green eyes. Vassar stared at him, frozen for a moment. Xzar was dead. Vassar stumbled forward, not back; this thing had killed one of them, and he needed revenge.

Imoen had her bow out. Arrows she'd thieved from kobolds and Black Talon mercenaries flew through the air. The creature closed in range. Montaron took it on, hacking at the tentacles. Khalid and Vassar attacked with their swords. It was a demon—it was from the pits of hell. Vassar's blood was cold and he smelt its rotting stench.

Khalid pushed Vassar aside. A moment later the tentacles swept against Khalid's shield, which held for a moment. Vassar struck, and the demon's flesh parted like water against his blade. Then it knitted together again. He reeled in shock. Montaron tried to cut it off at the knees—if it even had knees—and it turned on him. Like wire, the tentacles seized Montaron by his arms and legs. The halfling was torn to pieces. The smell of blood filled the air.

Imoen's arrow set a spark of flame on the creature. The arrow turned to steam when it struck.

"Water!" Imoen called out. "Bloody thing's water! We have to kill it—we have to use—" Maybe Xzar would've giggled about Imoen's elemental magic, or maybe not. The mad wizard was dead, and Vassar knew they were all going to die.

Jaheira cried for Silvanus to help her. Vines rose up from the ground, surrounding the creature, holding it back. She summoned animals, insects, flies to sting its flesh, bees to sting it, spiders to weave around it, dropping thick ropes of silver webbing to hold it down. It was immobilised for a moment and Vassar tried to hit it. His arms felt like lead. He thought he had it for a moment, hacking away at the flesh and meeting something inside the creature that beat and throbbed. But he wasn't paying attention to what was behind him. Khalid shouted.

Vassar looked behind himself and Khalid fell on him. He still clutched his shield, protecting Vassar. The tentacle intended for Vassar had punched through his body. Blood spilled over his armour, from under his breastbone. He tried to form words, maybe some last words to his wife Jaheira or to the son of his old friend, but he couldn't speak. Khalid's arms thrust out with a last burst of strength, and Vassar kissed the dirt. He fell flat on his face in the grass, away from the demon.

The creature killed Khalid. Jaheira's scream rent the air. Her voice turned into a roar, fur and claws spreading across her arms, her armour splitting open. The great brown bear had lost her mate, and there would be hell to pay. The bear rushed forward and grappled with the creature, holding it back while the water-like flesh ripped around its claws. The mist surrounded the bear, and seemed to overtake it. She bit into its flesh, above the spot Vassar had hit, but over time the bear seemed to lose her strength. She grew sickly and old in a matter of minutes. Imoen's arrows flew into its hide on the other side. When the bear fell, the creature dashed to Imoen.

"No!" Vassar reached out a hand. His body was one massive bruise and something was broken in his chest. Imoen—his sister. She couldn't fight, she'd die, die like everyone else. Imoen knew it was coming and she held the kobold arrow in her right hand. She stepped forward, thrust it into the demon's wound, and set the last arrow alight when it was deep inside.

The water demon burned from the inside out. Finally it stumbled, swept around itself in distress. Steam flowed around it, and black fluid gushed out from the wound. The tentacles gripped Imoen, thrusting through her, piercing her body. The demon was dying, but it would take its killer with it. Vassar crawled forward. He reached out a hand to his sister. He touched her with the tip of his fingers, their hands meeting. Imoen's brown eyes were terrified and the tentacles surrounded her face. The demon twisted something. And suddenly, Vassar wasn't looking at Imoen any more. She disintegrated. Her face turned into golden dust and then nothing. The fingertips in his were cold, and then Vassar held nothing but dust as he screamed and screamed.

The demon's corpse evaporated into black mud, but he cared nothing for that.

Vassar stumbled across the bear's corpse, trying to pry open its eyes, feeling its many wounds. Jaheira didn't move. The body was cooling, and he knew she was dead. Khalid's corpse was mostly intact, lying on his shield, bloodied with many piercing wounds beside the one through his chest. His fingers were still melded with the shield's handle, and Vassar couldn't have forced it loose if he tried. Montaron's torso was separated from his legs, and Xzar's dead eyes still stared blankly into the evening.

Nightfall was coming. Vassar looked to the skies, and heard the roars in the distance. The wyverns. He'd heard about the wyverns. He stumbled over Imoen's arrow case, over the dust that was all that was left of her. He knew he had to seek shelter, a way out of this horror. Perhaps he could go to sleep, then wake up to know this was all a nightmare, a fever dream. But he knew that would never be true.

He slipped through the undergrowth, hearing the flapping of leathery wings. Maybe he deserved a wyvern to get him. Once eaten, he'd never have to worry or grieve or blame himself for the deaths of everyone who'd ever cared for him. But instinct drove him on despite his pain, and when he saw the small cave in the hills, he thrust himself inside the protective rock. When the wyvern swooped down to seize him, its beak scraped against the bare stone.

Vassar crept into the tunnel, too small for any large monster to fit through. His breath was torture for him, his ribs and bruises on fire. When the darkness took his mind, he welcomed it.

—

Vassar woke, his body a massive screaming bruise. The images in his head were much worse. Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Xzar, Montaron. The memories of their corpses flashed through his mind. They were dead, and it wouldn't be long before he followed them. They had died for him and he remembered Khalid pushing him away, Imoen stepping up to the demon and stabbing it, bravely, knowing that she would be killed, reaching out a hand to him. He was cold and alone, and he had nothing.

He heard the noises coming from the other end of the tunnel. Vassar's wounds seemed to have scabbed overnight, at least enough for him to move. He winced as his broken rib jarred. His armour was useless to move in, and he discarded it piece by piece, horribly awkward in the confined space with his pain. He still had a waterskin left, and allowed himself to drink a mouthful. He fumbled with the pouch strapped to his waist. There were berries in it, berries that Jaheira had offered to all the group, in better days. One berry felt like it eased the pain, at least a little.

He crawled forward, and stopped at the end of the tunnel when the noises seemed loudest. He pried his tinderbox from the pouch. He still had half a torch that maybe he could light later. For now, he managed to bring himself light for a moment. He shivered when he saw what was below him. The noises were a clutch of young wyverns, crying out from atop a set of broken eggshells that were white and bright in the darkness of the caves. The wyverns seemed agitated, maybe by his smell, but after a moment of fear he realised he was protected by an overhang of rock. They couldn't get him from here. _But what would happen when the parents came back?_

"Hello, younglings," he said. "I suppose I'll be your dinner tonight. I hope I'm not too tough. You might want to tenderise me first, I suppose. Imoen had this great recipe for beef stew with red wine and parsnips. I bet I'd taste better with parsnips. And I wouldn't say no to red wine, either. It's a fantastic seasoning. I'd ask Xzar what works with long pig, but I'd worry he would give examples drawn from real life. And also I'd ask him if he wasn't dead. Jaheira would probably be happy about that, but she's gone too. And now I'm rambling, and slowly losing my mind. But it seems I'm annoying you, so I guess I have to be happy about that." The clutch of baby wyverns was hissing at him. They flapped their wings and seemed to be trying to flutter up to him.

"What? You too? _Another_?" boomed a deep bass voice. Vassar wondered if it was only in his mind. He'd had dreams before, horrible dreams he couldn't wake up from, where a voice in the darkness talked to him and he drowned in seas of blood. Maybe this voice was another such dream. "Did you escape the demon too? Tell me your rank and master!" it said.

Not such a dream. Vassar coughed, hacking up a bit of blood mixed with mucus. "Tell me what happened to you, first."

The man laughed. It echoed against the walls, and then the sound seemed to break down at the end. "I'll give you no satisfaction, fool. I resign you to the grave, and you will resign me. Listen. It comes."

 _I can't hear a damn thing because your bloody dramatic voice is booming and echoing in my ear_ , Vassar thought. Then he stiffened as he heard the rustle of large leathery wings. _Large. Very large._ The full-grown wyvern roared—the mother? the father? The sound shook the cave. Something heavy dropped onto the cave floor. In his mind's eye, Vassar saw the young wyverns tearing the corpse apart; he heard the scrabbling and the feasting. He moved himself back, skin scraping against the narrow walls of his tunnel. Not a moment too late. Something slammed against his cave wall and made the stones shake. He saw the wyvern's head—just a shape in darkness—and then it blotted out his narrow opening. The thing slammed its head into the wall twice, three times, but it couldn't reach him in this tunnel. He scrabbled back further. The caves tore strips from the back of his hands.

After a few more crushing hits, the wyvern slithered back down.

Vassar shivered, all over. He knew that he'd have no rest, perhaps ever again.

—

His throat was dry and he didn't know if it was morning or evening. _What's important is that my friends are all dead and I will join them soon._ His rib didn't hurt quite as much, but the scrapes and scratches hurt more. He snatched at his waterskin. It took all the self-control in the world to only take another mouthful, instead of drink it all and be done with everything. He'd felt the adult wyvern leave again, or maybe it was just his imagination. He lit his quick flare again, just long enough to stare in the darkness at the writhing wyvern children below. He tried to look for the other man's cavern, to find where he was trapped the same.

"All right," Vassar said, trying to project his voice. "It seems we're at an impasse. The grown wyvern can't get through to our hiding places. So I suppose you and I damn well should look at a spot of pest control. Where are you?"

"The creature waits patiently," the other man said, "to gather our decomposing corpses. My leg is broken; soon, I will be prey and not predator."

"Not that it matters much, but I have a small healing knack," Vassar said. He'd never have another chance to use it on Imoen or his other friends. "I was terrible at magic compared to my sister when I was a kid. But lately I got something, sorcery, I don't know. It's pathetic and I know I'm pathetic." It was hard to talk through his dry mouth. He'd woken up one day, feeling strange and unsettled after another nightmare, then tried to change the bandage of an infected cut from Mulahey, master of the mines. Something surged through him, and his flesh was suddenly whole. He'd tried to focus the strange power in spite of the caution Jaheira urged on him; he'd helped Imoen when a bandit treated her shoulder like a pincushion. What a bastard that guy was. Served him right to come down with the iron plague—delivered via Vassar's sword to the major artery in his thigh. "I'm not like my friend, my father's friend. She was a druid but she's dead now. It's only a knack I can try on you. I guess you're a friend." The man was the only other human here, among the wyverns. His loud voice was a relief compared to their tunes. Vassar tried to match his position based on his sounds, but with the echoes it was hard to tell.

"I'll light my tinder in a moment," Vassar said. "I want you to wave, make a sign, throw a rock. Let me see where you are."

There was no response to that; then more booming bass laughter, echoing across all the walls in turn as if it came from the pits of hell. _Hell might be where it came from. I'm sure he fled the same demon as us._ Vassar lit the small light anyway. He shuffled forward. The clutch of younglings hissed and flapped as he came closer. The light shone on the bones of the wyverns' prey last night, stripped completely clean. It looked like it had been an ettercap. The shadows flickered. There was an overhang of thick stalactites that guided a small passage on the ground, and maybe something moved beyond them in rhythm with the hellish laughter.

Vassar wrestled with the length of rope. He had one rope, that he'd tied to his waist before in case of emergencies; the waterskin; Jaheira's berries and a fragment of stale, dirty bread; a half-burnt torch and the tinderbox; and the clothes on his back. Not much to face a wyvern's siege with. He tied a heavy stone onto the end of the rope, and worked delicately to get the leverage to fling it. He heard the other man's cry as it landed.

"What is this?" the man asked. There was a sudden pressure on the rope.

 _Got you_ , Vassar thought. "Pulley system," he said. "I'll share water with you." He took another long pull himself. It might be the last he'd drink for some time, or ever.

"Not necessary. I am hip deep in it," the man said. "It seems the flooding reached even here. Had it drowned me, that would have been impressive."

"Flooding," Vassar repeated. He felt some young wyvern trying to investigate the rope. He whipped it up quickly and the stone caught it in the side of the head. That dissuaded it a little. "I suppose you met the water demon," he said. He fiddled, working with his small pouch. "Was there a flood, where you came from?"

"I should say there was." The other man's bitter laughter ended in a cough.

Vassar threw again. There was a pouch tied to the end, with three of Jaheira's berries and half of his bread. "Take this, quickly. You can't afford to let the wyverns steal it from you." He lit the flare to guide his aim. The stone and the pouch made it to the far cavern. He felt pressure, and a strong hand took what was offered to it. He pulled up the rope again. "Don't eat it all at once," he said. "The berries help. Your leg was broken? It's incredible you dragged yourself here. All alone."

There was more silence, extended and uncomfortable. Vassar heard something that sounded like it could have been human chewing. The child wyverns played their wyvern games, and the water in the bottom of the cave went forward and back. The man must be suffering down there, in the damp and mud. He could probably tell more than he had about the water demon and what it had done, before Vassar met it.

"My sister killed the water demon," Vassar narrated. "So you don't need to worry about that any more." _Imoen. Remember her. Winthrop will never forgive you._

"And yet that you are here indicates that you failed crucially," the other man sniped. The words hurt; Vassar knew they were true.

"I did. They're all dead. I couldn't even bury them. Perhaps the wyvern will eat them." Despite his best efforts, Vassar's voice cracked. He understood death and loss too well. "I suppose something will." When they found Gorion's body, there was already a column of black ants below him, devouring a slice of cheese in his pouch. You didn't spot ants at first when you looked down at a scene, and then you saw suddenly that everything was riddled with their black writhing bodies, thousands of them, mindlessly eating everything away.

The other man didn't talk again for a long time, hours. He groaned and grunted every so often, as if he wanted to hold it all back but his broken leg gave him great pain. Vassar's mind ran over other things, too much to think about. He remembered memories of better days, Candlekeep. He'd wanted so to please his foster father Gorion. He tried hard to study to be a mage like him, but that was never going to happen. He'd always liked running and training with Hull. If he couldn't be a scholar of Candlekeep, he could join the Watchers and keep the scholars safe. That never happened either, and it was Gorion who died to protect him.

On the night they left Candlekeep, they saw a man who seemed more than a man. A giant armoured figure on horseback, with glowing yellow eyes. Vassar would have thought him a demon, except that now he had encountered a literal demon. Gorion told him to run, and he raced into the night. The only father he'd ever known was cut down. He'd vowed to find his father's killer and Jaheira and Khalid agreed to help him in that quest, but that would never happen now.

Vassar's stomach rumbled. In the dark, he knew he couldn't see anything, but colours swarmed in front of his vision nonetheless. He remembered Montaron at the campfire, hanging rabbits up by the legs, still alive as he slit their throats and let the blood slowly drain into a sack. They tasted better that way, he said. Xzar chopped up a host of ingredients, his long knife flying, and complained about the foul water in Mulahey's den. Hopeless for potions or anything else, he said, and drained it through layers of pebbles, sand, cloth, and charcoal and then boiled it before he would accept it.

How much water did he have left? Mouthful by mouthful, drop by drop. Eke it out and be sensible, or at least try for a slower death. Delay it, ask for a minute more of time, an instant, however worthless that instant was. He heard the sounds of vomiting from the other man, ugly and painful retching. Vassar mumbled fragments of the story of the Dead Three to himself, one of Candlekeep's oceans of tomes. After many travels, the men walk to the underworld and separate the pieces of a prize that the owner doesn't want any more, for after many years even the Lord of the Dead, Jergal, learnt how foolish a burden it was. They bowled skulls to each other, rolling away across the endless plains. The wyverns rattled below him in the darkness.

The mother wyvern came in and out, and Vassar smelt fresh blood. He grew hungrier and thirstier, struggled to bury his waste and wondered about drinking urine. He crept back upward, trying to find where he'd come from. Surely it couldn't be that hard. A faint ray of light came in at the other end of the tunnel. Maybe he could draw himself upwards, maybe he could forage in the forest. Jaheira had taught him something. He'd fallen down on his way, past steep walls, and he bloodied his nails trying to claw himself up through the rise. He could feel the sun's heat on his face and breathe fresh air again.

Then there was the flap of wings. He let go and screamed. The wyvern had known the prey was coming, was trying to escape, weak and bloody-handed. It landed and snapped. The ground rumbled. The tunnel walls were only dirt. They fell in like rain. Pebbles and dust filled Vassar's mouth and nose. The wyvern flew up, and he felt a small ray of hope. Maybe it gave up. He would never give up. Forage, drink from a stream, return to the cave to hide, help the other prisoner. He scrabbled upwards.

The wyvern's claws released the boulder it had grasped. The sun was blotted out. The blow didn't hit him, but he knew what the wyvern had killed. He pushed at the immovable rock and failed to shift it even a little. Defeated, Vassar crawled back into his tunnel.

Three weeks without food. Three days without water. Three minutes without air. He lay back in the tunnel. His death would be slow, and he would share it. Starving to death took a frustratingly long time.

"Talk to me," Vassar begged the other man. He heard another weak cough. "How are you? You're the only person here. At least tell me your name."

Another burst of that dark, low laughter. "I am Sarevok. Most men call me Sarevok Anchev. The name means nothing to you, does it? Ignorant fool. They know me as the son of Rieltar Anchev, regional head of the Iron Throne. And another very great fool."

"Heard about it where I grew up, at Candlekeep. Iron Throne. Major merchant organisation operating in the Sword Coast. Rival to the Zhentarim. Bit of an unfortunate name choice, considering the iron crisis," Vassar said. At last he knew something. He remembered the travelling scholar speaking about the rising merchant lords in the Sword Coast and Amn. He couldn't remember her name, though he could remember her fresh honey-coloured curls, clean and shining, utterly opposite to his filth in this place. He'd never had the chance to ask her to do more than pass the salt at table and never would.

More hollow laughter from the man, as if Vassar had said something very funny indeed. "Truly you know all, a fool to rival Rieltar! Did you know that the Iron Throne lately extended its operations into Cloakwood, oh expert on our lore?"

Vassar felt he was on the brink of something, a spark about to ignite. He spoke gently and slowly. "No. I know nothing."

"And nothing you will know until the end of the chapter." The bitter, weak laughter spread through their cave. "We mined here. Iron ore. We stockpiled enough of it to equip an army, fresh iron, free from the plague. It is all gone. The dwarf warned Rieltar, and in retrospect we should have taken it more seriously. We dug too deep.

"Rieltar—my very great so-called _father_ —" Sarevok sounded like he spit the word. "Got drunk with a dwarven armourer. The dwarf had loose lips. This was once his clan's land and their mine. The dwarves dug too deep, and a flood came. The dwarf did not mention that other things were also breached, and more than the flood was due to those who penetrated the earth. It was Rieltar's idea to spark the iron shortage, stockpile iron in secret, and then turn an enormous profit in gold. It was my idea to improve the plan to suit my desires, to be more than merely the quest for gold. We tortured the dwarf to find the location, and began our mining operation."

The slaves taken by the bandit camp. The iron plague spreading, making weapons and farm tools crumble across the land. The half-orc torturer Mulahey in the kobold caves, poisoning Nashkel's iron on behalf of his masters. All that Vassar had seen came back to him. This was the man—well, the son of the man. Rieltar Anchev and his son. Guilty of all the crimes they'd seen on their journey.

"Then there was no warning," Sarevok said. "Our slave miners breached the point of no return. The waters rose and the demon came. I clung to a ladder in the pit, while the flooding washed men and arms and iron away. My armour held me down. The raging waters broke my leg, but my strength prevailed and I clung to the ladder." He didn't seem to know his own irony, as his voice was racked with physical pain. "I left the mine, the lone survivor after the flooding lessened. I stumbled into the wyvern pit. No, I crawled. I bear my heavy armour, gold and jewels, my stepfather's warrants and his signet ring. I hold the blade of a Deathbringer, the legendary Sword of Chaos. And I know that none of it will save me now."

"You released the demon," Vassar said. "Well. I officially vote you Most Unpopular Human in Wyvern Cave."

"I have never cared for the meaningless approbation of low minds," Sarevok said.

"And also Most Humourless," Vassar muttered. Words were inadequate. This man was responsible for so much of what they had fought. He was responsible for releasing the demon. He'd committed these crimes and doomed them all, and for what? The Iron Throne to have a monopoly on iron. How logical.

"I have felt the fever. The bloody shits. This water is diseased. My legs are under it, my skin bloated. I know what is to come next."

"Don't worry. I'll die too," Vassar said.

"Then is one of my ambitions complete," said Sarevok. His voice was weak, much weaker than it had been. "I have sought to kill you since the moment we met, Vassar of Candlekeep. Do you remember? Do you remember the visiting scholar, the one that you pointed to the archives of Alaundo?"

"There are so many," Vassar said. _And the Lord of Murder shall perish. But in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos will be sown from their passing ..._ The old chants stuck in his mind, tenor and baritone singers in harmony, their voices soaring above Candlekeep's jasmine hedges. He looked back into the past, the innocent past before Gorion's death. "A monk. A tall monk, built like an ex-soldier. Arrived with a blonde wizard. I fetched him water. I passed him bread and salt at table. You ate our food and drank our wine."

"I knew what you were, even then," Sarevok rasped. "I am a son of Bhaal, the Lord of Murder. And you are another child. It was your fate to die by my hand. There can be only one. I set the price on your head. I chased you on the road from Candlekeep, I conspired for your doom. I killed the man you called father."

Vassar said nothing and felt nothing. The darkness pressed on him like a garment. There was nothing to say.

 _That child will be the death of you_ , the dried-out Keeper of the Tomes hissed. Ulraunt stormed away; he gave them both permission to stay. Funny. Vassar hadn't remembered that before. He sat on the lip of a fountain in the grounds, barely hearing the grown men's conversation. The raven on top of the fountain croaked and flew away. It had feet like claws, tiny skeletal claws. He looked into the water and saw his own face, and saw the skull below his skin.

The armoured man with the glowing eyes plunged his sword into Gorion's chest. The child he took in was his death. The children of Bhaal were fated to kill each other, blood calling out to blood, brother fighting brother until all were dead. The Sword Coast would be drowned in blood.

Vassar lay in the darkness, silent.

—

"I'm weak, but there is something I must do," Vassar said. The wyverns' cave smelt of rotting flesh and the leftover younglings' meals. The mother had left for her hunting trip. He held the half-burnt torch, wrapped with oil-soaked cloth and all the tinder he had left. He'd lost his sword somewhere in the darkness. The child wyverns writhed and hissed below him.

He let go. He fell on top of one of the wyverns. He crushed its body even as it tried to bite him. He struggled to his feet and lit the torch. The baby wyverns were knee height to him. He kicked out at the one closest to him, knocking it back. He swung the flame around and they fled from it.

"Sarevok! You swore you still carried your sword. Help me fight!"

He could see the figure hunched in the lower cave, below the sharp stalactites. He backed down a baby wyvern and tried to thrust it in Sarevok's direction.

"If we are brothers, then let's fight together. Let's kill like the sons of murder!"

Another baby wyvern flapped upwards. Its jaws met around Vassar's shoulder and ripped it open. Blood ran down his skin. He flung himself back into the cave wall and smashed its skull. He smelt the fresh blood. The fourth wyvern was underfoot. He trod on it and pressed the torch into its head. It stopped moving under the flames.

Vassar seized the baby wyvern he'd crushed against the wall. The blood ran from its skull. He felt hunger and thirst and brought it to his mouth. He ripped the skin open with his teeth, and the warm salty blood ran down his throat.

"If I am a child of Bhaal, I will drown in blood! I will drink it deep down!"

The last baby wyvern floundered, trapped in the waters with Sarevok. The large dark man held it down, its head underwater. Soon it stopped moving.

Vassar was hungry, hungrier than he knew. He lapped at the wyvern's blood. Let none of it escape! Drink it all down! Slit open the belly with bare nails, and devour the liver raw! Here, brother—you must eat too! All the children are dead, and we have only the mother to fear. Taste the burnt wyvern flesh, freshly cooked. Claw open the eyelids, and suck their eyes out of their skulls! Wash it down with blood and more blood, until all is gone! You must take your share, brother. Taste the blood of our enemies, swallow it, and live! Let there be blood and more blood until we drown!

In the painful roar they heard, they knew that she knew her children were dead. Vassar swung the torch at her head to meet the mother wyvern's fierce attack. Her poisoned tail lashed down at him. He fell back. The torch was still in his hand. He ducked and leaped, stained with the blood of her children, running down from his mouth. The next blow lost him the torch. It rolled across the cave floor. He felt rather than saw her next strike, felt the murder inside the mother wyvern. He jumped up and held the head, binding himself to her.

Heavily, slowly, ponderously, Sarevok rose from the water, on one knee, a man in heavy waterlogged armour. The wyvern's stinger struck at him, but it could not pierce through. His eyes glowed gold in the darkness, the eyes of a man who was half god. He raised the Sword of Chaos, and struck down. Blood flowed from the wyvern's neck in a fierce tide. The wyvern flailed around helplessly. Her talons struck Sarevok. In his armour he could not move aside, and he lost the sword from his grip. But it didn't matter. The mother bled out the last of her life. With Vassar still clutching her head, she died. Vassar opened his mouth and tasted the hot blood. He rolled down, lying beside Sarevok.

The sons of Bhaal had fought together, side by side, and they won. The torch flickered, almost out. Vassar could see where Sarevok had taken refuge now, a narrow pool garrisoned by stalactites, lower than the rest of the cave and flooded by water. It was foul smelling and the water was dark.

"You were a worthy foe," Sarevok groaned. "A warrior striving toward our divine heritage. Alas, only one shall triumph over all."

He had already started to move, but Vassar had shed his own armour long before. He was faster to get out of the way. They rolled around the floor, wrestling each other. Vassar thrust his thumb into Sarevok's eye and made him reel back. Sarevok's knee hit him hard in the groin. He rolled away and landed on top of Sarevok. Sarevok's gauntlets met around Vassar's neck, and Vassar grappled him. He pried under Sarevok's gorget, soaking wet, and dug his fingers into bare skin.

His hands touched each other around Sarevok's neck. He squeezed, pushing in veins and muscles, even as his enemy—his brother—tried to do the same to him. But Vassar was on top, and less injured by what they had endured. He squeezed harder, forcing Sarevok's eyes to bulge out of his face, let him gasp and wheeze for breath. Fight for every last half-inch of it. His fingers slipped and then he pressed them further in, tightening, closing. Tendons and muscles gave way beneath his hands. Sarevok's chest and neck struggled for breath, but he held him steadily. The blood in his veins beat faster below his skin. The movements became weaker, but Vassar held on, knowing that his brother still lived. He pressed harder, never letting go. The hands around his own neck began to falter. Vassar's grip tightened around his brother's bull neck, his hands not wide enough to meet, pressing down on the windpipe. Sarevok's grip grew slack and began to drop. Perhaps it was a trick. Vassar did not let go. Sarevok's neck bones creaked under his hands. The flesh gave way under him. The yellow glow in Sarevok's eyes faded, even as the torch guttered out. A strangled groan escaped Sarevok's mouth. Then there was no air left for him to do anything. Vassar held on, and felt his brother's flesh start to grow still as death. Sarevok's life faded. Golden dust filled the space where Sarevok had been and then dissolved. Sarevok's rings and lifeless jewels scattered the ground. Vassar fell, with nothing to hold on to.

He lay in water, in Sarevok's pool. Blood trickled from Vassar's shoulder, from the wounds the wyverns had left on him. His heart beat, and he was alive. Over time, as he lay without moving, the floodwaters began to recede at last. He fell in and out of dreams, his body knitting itself together again, piece by piece.

This new light was blinding. Vassar heard human voices again for the first time in a long while. Days, perhaps. He breathed, and closed his eyes against the firelight in his face.

"This trail was a success. Five dead wyverns, sir Anchev. Four young ones, one adult." A guard, a man, spoke to someone out of sight. His torchlight was bright. "I found your son's signet ring, and his sword. There's bloodied clothing, but no body. One survivor. I don't know him."

"Bring him out into the light. Let me look at him."

The guard dragged Vassar out, ungently. He was back in the Cloakwood, lying on the dew-wet grass. A richly dressed old man he didn't know looked down at him. The embroidered red and yellow robes looked ridiculous in the forest. He carried a staff, and prodded Vassar with it.

"The face is familiar." The old man frowned. "Not one of our men. I take it Sarevok is dead?" He poked Vassar's side again with his stick. It hurt. The man's eyes were dark, almost black, and Vassar felt something when he stared at him. He wanted to tell this man everything and knew he had to. He felt a sorcerer's will. Gorion would have told him that this was magic, a charm.

But there was no longer a point, and he could not lie.

"Yes. I killed him," Vassar said.

There was a woman's cry. A soldier rushed forward in heavy armour. Her face was distorted in what looked like grief. Her features were Kara-Turan. "Let me kill him, lord. I ask this one boon of you. Sarevok is dead. Let me kill his murderer."

"Silence!" The woman started forward, but the old man spat out a syllable and raised his hand. All the guards around him seemed frozen in place. The woman's eyes twitched and rolled, but she could not move. They were held by the spell. Slowly, the man walked over Vassar.

"You killed Sarevok. Good. In case you do not know it: my name is Rieltar Anchev, chief of the Iron Throne in Baldur's Gate." The staff hit Vassar in the ribs again, giving him sharp pain in his damaged one. "I had a foolish failure for a son. The disaster to our operations is immeasurable. Accountants breathing down our neck, regional commanders sending inquiries, trade grinding to a halt thanks to the war rumours. We'll bring this attempt to an end and recoup our losses in more beneficial investments."

Rieltar Anchev walked around him, slowly, everyone around him still frozen. He was in control of all around and relished it.

"I recognise you, below the mud and filth," Rieltar said. "One doesn't become a man of my wealth and position without some eye for detail. You are the mercenary Vassar of Candlekeep. Don't answer me; simply nod your head for yes. You were a thorn in my idiot son's side. Sarevok placed your face on any number of wanted posters, yet another affair of his that failed. The priestess who so terribly wants to kill you is Tamoko, one of my son's doxies and whores.

"I have never much liked loose ends." Rieltar stepped back. He raised a hand and lifted his spell. "My dear, go ahead."

The woman's face was distorted by rage and tears. Tamoko plunged the dagger down.

Gold flecks spread across the Bhaalspawn's consciousness. Nothing was left. He felt his body become dust, and dissipate into the wind.


End file.
